Dust and Glory
by rayemars
Summary: Because you would not kill for something unless you had seen its power. A Yami Bakura's childhood fic.


Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

The ancient Egyptians measure a year in three seasons, based on the cycle of the Nile: Akhet, the inundation; Peret, the growing time; and Shemu, the drought.

Source material for the exposition courtesy of members.shaw.ca/jenniyah/, comics 287 and 290.  
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"The events that crush certain people will drive others to revolt and victory."

-- Alexis Carrel, _Man, the Unknown_

The destruction was swift, utter, and unexpected.  After all, Kuru*eruna was simply another farming village, similar to any other scattered along the banks of the Nile.  Only one family knew of the truth, and of the strange temple that had been built beneath the ground.

But the Shadow Monsters sensed the power that rumbled beneath the dusty surface of the town, and were instinctively drawn to it.  The village never had a chance.

Fragments of mud bricks and timber were now scattered along the streets of the town, covering both the dead and the dying.  The dry winds of the Shemu season rattled the shreds of reed mats and swept the groans and cries of the villagers down to the edge of the river.

There was a shift of timber and broken bricks at one corner of the town, and a boy managed to crawl free of the destruction.  Blood dripped down one side of his face to splatter on the dirt as he clawed his way forward, dragging his waist and legs loose of the rubble.  There were scrapes and the beginnings of bruises all along his body...but he was alive.

A loud roar caught the boy's attention, and he scrambled backwards against the timbers.  The boy brought his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, trying to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible.  He stared wide-eyed at the monsters that roamed through the village, many of which were gathered in one corner to the north-west near the cliff, clawing or hacking at the sandy dunes.  The boy didn't blink as he watched the creatures.

The presence of the Shadow Monsters was another sign that the wars were still continuing, though the pharaoh had strived to end them.  The monsters had broken free of the still tenuous hold the king maintained over the Shadow Realm.

Such a breach in the Realm was not something that could escape notice, and the priests of the palace were already focusing their powers on calling them back.  After a few more moments, the creatures ceased scuffling at the cliff and began to lope in the direction of Thebes, unwilling to return to the captivity of their slabs and the Shadow Realm, but as yet unable to escape the combined call of their masters.

The boy continued to watch the Shadow Monsters as they left, staring unblinkingly at their retreating forms until they disappeared into the haze of heat left from the desert sands.

He might have stared longer, if the groan of a man trapped beneath the remnants of a nearby hut hadn't caught his attention.  

The roof and walls had collapsed on Iry as he was running out the door, but somehow he had managed to twist around so that he was lying on his back with timbers and bricks piled over his waist and legs.  He weakly stretched a hand out to the boy.  "Please...help me...."

The boy stared blankly at him for a moment, before standing up on unsteady legs.  He stumbled toward Iry, and sank to the ground next to his head, hissing when the coarse sand ground into the cuts and scrapes upon his legs.

The boy reached out hesitantly and grabbed the man's shoulder, tugging him forward.  Nothing happened, so the boy pulled harder.  The man continued to plead for freedom, and the boy stood, dug his feet into the ground, and wrenched as hard as he could.

There was a snapping sound, and Iry began screaming.  Frightened, the boy let go.  The screams turned into curses, directed at the boy, the monsters, the pharaoh, anything the man could think of.  The boy turned and ran, sandals slipping on the grit as he fled.

The boy was crouched against the remnant of a shop wall, hiding from anything that appeared to move.  He had been there for a long time, and his stomach was beginning to tighten and rumble.  But the pitiful moans and cries of villagers who hadn't survived as well as he had still carried occasionally on the wind, and were enough to keep him rooted in place.

However, when night began to fall and the temperature dropped, the boy finally crawled away from the wall and made his way into the street.  The blood on his face had dried to a tacky brown coating, and the sand and the dust of the mud bricks clung to his dried sweat and formed a grimy layer on his skin.  The scrapes on his legs and arms were a bright red when they were visible beneath the filth, and the bruises from the collapse of his hut had fully blossomed on his back and torso and everywhere else he had been hit by the falling debris.

The boy stumbled down the street in the unconscious direction of his home, hunched over and clutching his arms against his stomach, hungrier than he could remember being before in his life.

When he reached what was once his home, the boy tried to call for his parents, but his throat was cracked and dusty.  He clutched a broken timber and pulled it away from the doorframe, but yelped when a splinter dug into his palm.  He dropped the timber, and more rubble fell in front of the door as the wooden post was dislodged.

The boy swallowed several times until his throat was no longer as dry.  "Father?  Mother?" he called.

There was no answer, and the boy reached out to try and remove the obstacles before his door again.  His palm throbbed when he flexed it, however, and the boy changed his mind and began sucking on the spot where the splinter was, attempting to pull it out.  The light grew fainter, and the boy stared at the doorframe once more.  "Father!" he called, forcing his voice a little louder.

The only reply was the groan of the man still partially buried across from him.  After waiting fruitlessly until the night had fallen, the boy curled up in a spot in the wreckage that offered a faint hope of shelter.  He continued sucking on the splinter until he fell asleep.

The sharp hunger pains shooting through his torso woke the boy the next morning.  In the first faint light of dawn, he scrambled away from the ruins of his hut and began wandering the street again.

"Help...me..." Iry called, unable to reach out a hand this time.  

The boy hunched over from the nauseous pain in his stomach and walked past.  His hand throbbed, but he began rummaging through the huts that weren't fully collapsed in search of food.

In one house he found a little girl clinging to the corpse of her mother and crying.  He tried to pull her away and drag her with him, but Kemsit only wailed and clung tighter.  Even slapping her didn't work, so at last the boy left.  He didn't look for food in the house, thinking Kemsit would need it.

The boy hunted through the rubble of another half-collapsed shop, finding only some grimy bread and a duck that had been too ruined by the rampage to be edible to any but the most desperate.  The boy devoured the waterfowl quickly, tearing the feathers from the raw meat and gnawing it down to the slender bones.  He tore off a chunk of bread and barely took the time to brush it slightly cleaner before cramming it into his mouth.

The boy wandered back into the streets, chewing rapidly and hands full with the loaf.  A harsh wind swept up from the desert, swirling sand around the debris of the village, and the boy winced and brought an arm up to block the grit from his eyes.

More sand drifted up around the boy, and he began loping down the street, looking for a place to hide.  He came upon a larger house that was only partially wrecked, and hid inside.

"Meryankh?" a voice said brokenly, and the boy jerked around.

A man was stretched on the floor, bruised and with blood and paler fluids crusted around his hollow eyes.  "Son?" he whispered.  "Is that you?"

The boy took a hesitant step back, clutching the loaf tighter.

"I was afraid you were not coming back," the man continued, before coughing wetly.  His body spasmed with the action, and by the time he stilled the boy was sitting next to him, bracing his shoulder with a dusty hand.

The man smiled painfully and placed his hand over the boy's.  "I am glad you returned, son."

The boy said nothing.

"Did the--" the man coughed "--the creatures find it?"  When the boy didn't reply, the man clenched his hand tighter.  "Son?  Is the tomb safe?"

The boy paused, and shook his head.  Then he realized that the man couldn't see him, and spoke.  "...."  The boy swallowed to wet his dry throat, and tried again.  "No."  His voice was cracked and harsh, enough so to be unrecognizable as his own or someone else's.

The man's face twisted painfully, and his grip on the boy's hand tightened even more.  "It cannot be...."  The man tilted his head, staring at him with missing eyes.  "You must find a villager, Meryankh.  Have them go to the Pharaoh.  This must be known."

"Everyone is gone," the boy replied.  "It's all gone."

The man shut his eyelids as a reflex, and the boy finally recognized him as Meketra, the headman of the village.  "So many--and unburied.  May Anubis judge them anyway."  He coughed again.

The boy stayed quiet, then looked down at the loaf of bread in his hands.  He glanced back at the man, and down again.  At last, he pulled his hand away and tore the loaf down the middle.  He pushed half into Meketra's hand.  "Eat."

The man blinked.  Then he lifted the bread slightly, and ran his fingers along it.  "Where did you find this?  Did the store survive somehow?"

The boy had crammed another handful in his mouth, and did not answer.  At last the man ate his portion, and the boy stood up once he was finished.

"Meryankh, where are you going?" Meketra asked, stretching his neck slightly.  The boy paused and turned slightly.  "Stay here," the man said, holding out a hand in the wrong direction.  "You were gone for so long...."

The boy hesitated a moment longer, but realized that this place offered more protection than that of his destroyed home.  He turned and walked back, lying down near the man.  Meketra fumbled blindly for a moment before placing a hand in his hair.  "At least you are alive," the man said quietly.

The boy stared at the fractured wall for a time, sucking on his hand until he finally pulled the splinter out.  He fell asleep.

The next morning, the boy woke up less hungry than before, but his throat was burning with dryness.  He stood up and quietly began to search for something to drink, not wanting to make any noise that would inform Meketra he was an imposter wandering a house not his own.

He found only a small amount of food that was in any way edible--the part of the house that had collapsed included the pantry area--and all that remained was a jar of beer, another bird and two more loaves of bread.  The boy hesitated, then tore a loaf in half and carried that and the jar back to the room Meketra lay in.

The man stirred as soon as he stepped close.  "Meryankh?"  His voice was slower, thicker than it had been last night.

The boy tore the bread into half again and gave the slightly larger piece to the man.  "Not much food is left," he said in reply.

Once they were done eating, Meketra coughed and laid a hand near his temple.  "You must travel to the king yourself, son.  Warn him that due to the monsters, the temple is unguarded."  The man paused.  "Soon.  Stay a little longer, and...prepare the offerings for me."  The man paused.  "Are there really none left?"

"None," the boy repeated.

Meketra closed his eyelids.  "Go, and see if any can be properly given over to the afterlife.  This is a hideous time we live in," he said quietly.  "It seems it will never get better, despite his promise."

The boy stood up and left.

He walked to the other half of the village, and stopped when he came to his home.  The boy stared at the rubble, then turned and walked over to the man trapped under debris across from his own hut.  The boy gazed at the dead, vacant eyes before leaning down and wrenching the corpse out.  He took off Iry's wrap, wrinkling his nose at the smell of decaying flesh that grew more powerful throughout the village as the sun continued to rise.  He ripped the linen in half and wrapped it around his hands.

The boy pulled the wreckage of his home away and at last managed to get inside.

He crouched beneath a broken pole that had once held up part of the roof, and looked at the soiled corpses of his parents.  The boy swallowed, then moved away quickly and crawled back into the street.

He sat on the ground and stared at the house, headless of the heat and odor, until the sun began to fall on the opposite side of the sky.  Then the boy stood and stumbled slightly, before straightening and ransacking the huts and houses nearby.

The boy returned at the brink of sunset, angry and frustrated at the lack of offerings he had found.  In his arms were several tools and jars, one of which was cracked, and the fowl from Meketra's house which he had quietly snuck in and removed.  The boy crawled back inside the hut and placed the items beside the bodies.  He tried to remember a prayer to recite, but after a few attempts of only recalling a phrase or two, he gave up.  The boy watched the corpses until it became dark.  Then he returned to Meketra's house.

After unwrapping his hands, the boy took the half-loaf out of the pantry area and deliberately tore one side larger than the other.  The boy gave the smaller portion to the man when he sat down next to him.

"Could any be saved?" Meketra asked him, his voice fainter.

"No," the boy answered.  He didn't speak for the rest of the night, ignoring Meketra's attempts to question him.

When the boy woke up the next morning, he found Meketra mumbling incoherently.  The man's skin was burning to the touch, and the boy tore a fourth of the last loaf in half and gave it to him.

"There's very little left," he said, but the man didn't appear to hear him.  The boy ate the half of Meketra's bread and his own fourth.  He chewed slowly as the man continued to talk.

"You must go soon, Meryankh," the man said in a moment of lucidity.  "Even if it means leaving me.  The longer the temple is unguarded, the greater the risk that someone will take the seven Items and King Akunamukanon's effort to seal the darkness will be useless.  The peace must be kept."

The boy hunched his shoulders slightly and stared in the direction of the village.  "This is peace?"

Meketra was silent for a long time.  Then he lifted a hand to his eyes and touched the crusted blood around the sockets.  "Some must die, to protect the land.  It is the Pharaoh's will."  He let his hand drop.  "I brought you to the passage when you turned a man, Meryankh.  You saw that unnatural underground temple, felt the evil power in the air.  Have you forgotten?"  He paused, but the boy didn't answer.  "The lives of this village mean nothing in the end.  Only the protection of the tablet from the Items is of importance.  Sokukekuropahadesu...and his powers must be forever sealed from the world."  The man swallowed heavily.  "That was the contract King Akunamukanon made.  But Meryankh, you must know....The Items will also allow a man to hide his evil until the very end...and if someone broke into the temple now...."  Meketra closed his eyelids.  "It is our duty to prevent...the powers of the Realm from being given to the unworthy."  He reached out a hand.  "Meryankh, I am...so thirsty...."

The boy lifted the jar of beer and held it for the man to drain dry.

Later, the boy ransacked what was left of the house and came upon a chest which contained some clothes and accessories.  He took a fresh wrap and left Meketra, walking through the silent village towards the river.  He bathed and removed as much of the grit and dried blood from himself as he could, and held his face under the water until his chest burned, trying to get away from the smell of death.

When he jerked his head up and gasped for air, the stench was worse because of the reprieve.

The boy dressed and left the riverside, walking through the village and looking for any places he had not already searched for food or drink.  He noted one and went in, more careless than earlier, because most of the buildings that were going to collapse had done so already, and because there was no one around to stop him from entering.

The little girl was still there, as dead as the corpse of her mother that she had clung to.  The boy looked at Kemsit for a moment, then scrounged through the hut.  He found a jar of beer and a grimy loaf and carried them back to Meketra's house.

The boy set the jar down by the door, carefully, so the man would not hear the sound of the clay on the hard ground.

He took the remaining half loaf from the pantry area, looked at the dying man, and ate most of the bread.  He set what remained by the door.  Then he tore a handful from the dirty bread and put it in Meketra's hand.  "This is all that's left," he said.

Meketra paused, then held it back out.  "You take it, son," he said weakly.  "You need it more than I."

The boy was full, so he set the handful next to the jar and other loaves.

The last morning, the boy woke to the sound of living beings.  When he looked over, he found that Meketra had died during the night.  The boy scrambled up, grabbed the jar and the bread, and left the house, hiding in the nearest pile of debris he saw.

Soldiers walked through the village, part of the palace's personal train who had been trusted with the clean up.  The boy did not know why they were there or who they were, only what.

He curled as deep into the shadows of the wreckage as he could, but the white of his wrap and his hair stood out against the tan and brown rubble of brick and timber and sand.  One of the soldiers wrenched him out by the arm while calling to the others.  The boy struggled against the grip, but stilled when the man in charge, a lieutenant, walked up.

The lieutenant grasped the boy's chin and tilted his head up to look at him.  "What have you seen?" he asked.

The boy was silent.

"Did you see the monsters come through here?" he demanded.  "Tell, if you want to be helped."

The boy hesitated, then nodded once.

The lieutenant sighed slightly.  "I had hoped...it will be detrimental to the pharaoh if any witnesses of this breach live to spread rumors," he said, speaking not to the boy, but to himself.

Another soldier jogged up and stopped in front of the lieutenant.  "We have found the vizier Meketra.  He is dead."

The lieutenant loosened his grip on the boy's chin and turned in order to face the new soldier.  The boy jerked his arm free and ran.

He heard the lieutenant order the two soldiers to capture him, but he had been born in Kuru*eruna, and they had not; he had walked through the ruins for the past four days, and they had not; and he knew a place to hide, and they did not.  He ran to the north-east corner of the village by the cliffs, where he had seen the monsters gathered before.  Behind him, the soldiers were catching up.

The boy reached the cliffs and searched for a crevice to hide in, until the soldiers passed by and he could look for the temple.  The boy slid into a spot and his weary legs collapsed beneath him.  He pressed a hand to the pain in his side and crawled backwards, trying to get as far from the revealing sun as possible.

His hand touched something dry and slightly sticky.  The boy turned and squinted at the darkness, until he recognized the now-familiar sight of a corpse.  The man was only a few seasons older than him, and when the boy pushed him out of the way he felt deep claw marks across Meryankh's chest.

The boy continued to crawl backwards, slowly, until he felt the ground begin to drop beneath him.  Then he pushed himself onto his feet and walked carefully down the dark ramp.  As he moved, he left the rot and stench of the village behind and replaced it with cool, musty air.

He placed a hand on the wall of the ramp and moved slowly down until he came into the temple proper.  A little light flickered out towards the walls in the form of a single lamp, burned down nearly to the bottom.  It stood in a holder at the nearest edge of the platform, which lay in the center of the room.

Something in the stale, energy-polluted air of the temple and the grimy, lost boy recognized each other.  The boy walked forward and climbed the steps, picking up the lamp.  He held it before him and walked to the circular, shadowy object which sat at the end of the platform.  When he reached it, the boy set the lamp down and stared at the holes in the smooth stone of the burial façade, each one carved out to a different shape.

He touched the tablet.

The boy's mouth twisted up into a smile.  It grew wider, until his face was disfigured with a vicious grin, and he began to laugh.  The boy threw his head back and laughed louder than he had in his life, headless of the fact that the lamp had burned to nothing but wax and sputtered out.

When he paused for breath, he heard voices far away, echoing along the ramp.  The boy jerked his head around, listening as the footsteps grew closer.  He jumped clumsily off the platform, trusted his brief memory of the temple's layout that he had seen when there was light, and began to run again.

Bakura ran until he learned to kill; and he did not stop for a very long time.


End file.
